Black dawn (2 page)
This girl is lying.
She must have done something-something terri
ble. And she can't show us Miles's body--or maybe
there isn't a body because he's still alive.
Yes! Maggie felt suddenly lifted by hope. It is all
a mistake. There's no reason for Miles to be dead.
All we have to do is make Sylvia tell the truth.
But nobody else in the room knew. They were
all listening as
Sylvia went on with her story. They
all believed.
"I didn't get out before the weather
hit....
I had
to stay in the tent for three days. When I got out I
was so weak, but I managed to signal to some
climbers. They saved me, took care of
me....
By
then it was too late to look for him. I knew there
was no chance he'd made it through that
storm...."
She broke down completely.
The ranger began talking about weather condi
tions and recovery efforts, and suddenly Maggie's
mother was making strange gasping noises and
sinking toward the floor.
"Mom!"
Frightened, Maggie started toward her.
Her father looked up and seemed to realize for the
first time that she was there.
"Oh, Maggie.
We've had some bad news."
He's trying to take care of me. But he doesn't
realize
...
I've got to tell him
...
.
"Dad," she said urgently.
" L
isten
.
There's
some
thing-
”
"Maggie," her mother interrupted, stretching out
a hand. She sounded rational, but there was some
thing wild in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, baby. Some
thing awful has happened-"
And then she fainted. Suddenly Maggie's father
was staggering under dead weight. And then the
ranger and one of the sheriffs were brushing past
Maggie. They were holding her mother up, and her
mother's head was
lolling,
moving around on a
boneless neck, and her mother's mouth and eyes
were part open and part closed. A new kind of
awful feeling came to Maggie, making her weak
and giddy. She was afraid she would faint herself.
"Where can we-" the male officer began.
"There's the couch," Maggie's father said hoarsely
at the same time. There was no room for Maggie.
She could only stand out of the way and dizzily
watch them
carry
her mother.
As they did, Sylvia began murmuring. It took
Maggie a moment to focus on the words. "I'm so
sorry. I'm so sorry. I wish there was something ...
I should go home now."
"You stay right here," the female officer said,
looking toward Maggie's mother. "You're in no con
dition to be walking anywhere. You'd be in the hos
pital now if you hadn't insisted on coming here
first."
"I don't need a hospital. I'm just so tired
..:'
The
officer turned. "Why don't you go sit in the
car?" she said gently.
Sylvia nodded. She looked fragile and sad as she
walked down the path toward the squad car. It was
a beautiful exit, Maggie thought. You could practi
cally hear the theme music swelling.
But Maggie was the only one with the chance to
appreciate it. She was the only one watching as
Sylvia reached the car
... and paused.
And then turned away from it and continued on
down the street.
And the end credits run, Maggie thought.
Then she thought
,
she's going to her apartment. Maggie stood frozen, pulled in two directions. She wanted to stay and help her mother. But something inside her was utterly furious and fo
cused and it was screaming at her to follow Sylvia.
Instinct had always been Maggie's strong point.
She hung there for a moment, with her heart
pounding so hard that it seemed to be coming out
-of her mouth. Then she ducked her head and
clenched her fists.
It was a gesture the girls on her soccer team
would have recognized. It meant that Steely Neely
had made up her mind and was going to rush in
where smarter people feared to tread. Look out,
world; it's stomping time.
Maggie whirled and dashed back down the hall
into her bedroom.
She slapped the light switch on and looked
around as if she'd never seen the place before.
What did she need-and why did she always keep
it so messy? How could she
find
things?
She kicked and pulled at a pile of bath towels
until a pair of high-top tennis shoes emerged,
then
she jammed her feet in them. There was no time
to change her pajama top. She snatched a dark blue jacket off the floor and found herself, just for
a moment, nose to nose with a photograph stuck
into the frame of her mirror.
A picture of Miles, on the summit of
Rainier
He was grinning and giving the thumbs up
sign. His hat was off and his auburn hair was shin
ing in the sun like red gold. He looked handsome
and a little wicked.
Scrawled in black marker across white snow was
"For the bossiest, nosiest,
stubbornest
, BEST little
sister in the world. Love, Miles."
With no idea
why
she was doing it, Maggie pulled
the picture out of the mirror. She shoved it in her
jacket pocket and ran back down the hall.
Everyone was gathered around the couch, now.
Even Jake was nosing his way in. Maggie couldn't
see her mother, but the lack of frantic activity told
her that there wasn't any crisis going on. Everyone
seemed quiet and restrained.
It'll just take a few minutes. It's better for me not
to tell them anything until I'm sure. I'll probably
be back before they even realize I'm gone.
With that jumble of excuses in her mind, she
slipped out the front door to follow Sylvia.
CHAPTER 3
I
t
was raining, of course. Not a terrible storm, just
a steady spitting patter that Maggie hardly noticed.
It plastered her hair down but it also concealed the
noise of her steps.
And the low-lying clouds blocked out
Rainier
I'm
actually
following
somebody,
Maggie
thought. She could hardly believe it, but she was
really moving down her own home street like a spy,
skirting cars and ducking behind rhododendron
bushes.
While all the time keeping her eyes on the slender figure in front of her.
That was what kept her going. She might have
felt silly and almost embarrassed to be doing
this
but
not tonight. What had happened put her far
beyond embarrassment, and if she 'started to relax
inside
and feel the faint
pricklings
of uncertainty,
memory surged up again and swept everything
else away.
The memory of Sylvia's voice.
The buckle might
not have been fastened
right.
And the memory of
her mother's hand going limp as her body sagged.
I'll follow you no matter where you go, Maggie thought. And
then
...
She didn't know what then. She was trusting to instinct, letting it guide her. It was stronger and
smarter than she was at the moment.
Sylvia's apartment was in the U district, the col
lege area around the
was a long walk, and by the time they reached it,
the rain was coming down harder. Maggie was glad
to get out of it and follow Sylvia into the under
ground garage.
This is a dangerous place, she thought as she
walked into the echoing darkness. But it was sim
ply a note made by her mind, with no emotion
attached. At the moment she felt as if she could
punch a mugger hard enough to splatter him
against the wall.
She kept a safe distance as Sylvia waited for the elevator,
then
headed for the stairs.
Third floor.
Maggie trotted up faster than the elevator could make it and arrived not even breathing hard. The
door of the stairwell was half open and she watched from behind it as Sylvia walked to an
apartment door and raised a hand to knock.
Before she could, the door opened. A boy who
looked a little older than Maggie was holding it,
letting a couple of laughing girls out. Music drifted
to Maggie, and the smell of incense.
They're having a party in there.
That shouldn't be so shocking-it was Saturday
night. Sylvia lived with three roommates;
they
were
undoubtedly the ones having the party. But as the
girls walked past Sylvia they smiled and nodded
and Sylvia smiled and nodded back before walking
calmly through the door.
Hardly the sort of thing you do when your boy
friend's just been killed, Maggie thought fiercely.
And it doesn't exactly fit the "tragic heroine" act,
either.
Then she noticed something. When the boy hold
ing the door let go, it had swung almost shut--but not quite.
Can I do it?
Maybe.
If I look confident.
I'd have
to walk right in as if I belonged, not hesitate.
And hope she doesn't notice. Then get behind
her. See if she
talks
to anybody, what she
says
...
The laughing girls had caught the elevator. Maggie walked straight up to the door and, without
pausing,
she pushed it open and went inside.
Look confident, she thought, and she kept on
going, instinctively moving toward a side wall. Her
entry didn't seem to have caused a stir, and it was
easier than she'd thought to walk in among these
strangers. The apartment was very dark, for one
thing. And the music was medium loud, and every
body seemed to be talking.
The only problem was that she couldn't see Syl
via. She put her back to the wall and waited for
her eyes to adjust.
Not over there-not by the stereo.
Probably in
one of the bedrooms in back,
changing.
It was as she moved toward the little hallway
that led to the bedrooms that Maggie really noticed
the strangeness. Something about this apartment,
about this party
... was off.
Weird.
It gave her the
same feeling that Sylvia did.
Danger.
This place is dangerous.
Everybody there was so good-looking--or else
ugly in a really fashionable way, as if they'd just
stepped off MTV. But there was an air about them
that reminded Maggie of the sharks at the Seattle
Aquarium. A coldness that couldn't be
seen,
only
sensed.
There is something so wrong here. Are they all
drug dealers or something?
Satanists?
Some kind
of junior mafia?
They just feel so evil....
Maggie herself felt like a cat with all its fur stand
ing on end.
When she heard a girl's voice coming from the
first bedroom, she froze, hoping it was Sylvia.
"Really, the most secret place you've ever imag
ined." It wasn't Sylvia. Maggie could just see the
speaker through the crack in the door. She was
pale and beautiful, with one long black braid, and
she was leaning forward and lightly touching the
back of a boy's hand.
"So exotic, so mysterious-it's a place from the
past, you see. It's ancient, and everybody's forgotten about it, but it's still there. Of course, it's terri
bly dangerous-but not for
us...."
Not relevant, Maggie's mind decided, and she
stopped listening. Somebody's weird vacation
plans; nothing to do with Sylvia or Miles.
She kept on edging down the hall. The door at
the end was shut.
Sylvia's bedroom.
Well, she has to be in there; she isn't anywhere
else.
With a surreptitious glance behind her, Maggie crept closer to the door. She leaned toward it until
her cheek touched the cool white paint on the
wood, all the while straining her eyes toward the
living room in case somebody should turn her way.
She held her breath and tried to look casual, but
her heart was beating so loudly that she could only
hear it and
the
music.
Certainly there was nobody talking behind the
door. Maggie's hopes of eavesdropping faded.
All right, then, I'll go in. And there's no point in
trying to be stealthy; she's going to
notice.
So I'll just do it.
It
helped
that she was so keyed up. She didn't even need to brace herself; her body was at maximum tension already. Despite her sense that there
was something menacing about this whole place,
she wasn't frightened, or at least not in a way that
felt
like fear. It felt like rage instead, like being des
perately ready for battle. She wanted to grab some
thing and shake it to pieces.
She took hold of the knob and pushed the door
open.
A new smell of incense hit her as the air rushed
out. It was stronger than the living room smell,
more earthy and musky, with an overlying sweet
ness that Maggie didn't like. The bedroom was even
darker than the hall, but Maggie stepped inside.
There was tension on the door somehow; as soon
as she let go of it, it whispered shut behind her.
Sylvia was standing beside the desk.
